Karen had lost her combative abrasiveness even before they reached the chip shop. She’d really, only been putting on an act, anyway. She sat quietly listening until Kelly had finished.
‘Another death,’ she murmured, almost to herself. ‘And not only that, but another death bloody Gerry Parker-Brown avoided telling me about.’
‘It’s only second-hand so far, but we have an approximate date, and I assume it happened either at the barracks or thereabouts,’ said Kelly. ‘So I was hoping you could check it out with the coroner’s court. The families of the dead soldiers have been the best leads so far. If this young man, Trevor, does turn out to have died under suspicious circumstances, then we need to get to his family.’
Karen looked thoughtful. ‘Yes, well, let’s see if he ever existed first, shall we?’
‘Well, of course, but—’
‘And if so,’ Karen interrupted. ‘What I want to do now is to put a formal investigation in place. Only that’s easier said than done when the army is involved. However, I would hope that if we have four deaths like this, even our chief constable would be convinced.’
‘Surely, he would be.’
‘You never know with Harry Tomlinson.’ Karen did not look happy. ‘You should know that I went back to see Gerrard Parker-Brown this afternoon,’ she continued, carefully avoiding mentioning that she had also spent the morning with the colonel.
‘And?’
‘And he was much the same as he was before, on the surface at any rate. Appearing to be helpful and co-operative and actually giving very little away. Denied having deliberately misled me, naturally.’
She then gave him a summary of her conversation with the colonel at Hangridge, still omitting, however, her personal relationship with the soldier, such as it was, and the way in which she felt that he had been deliberately trying to manipulate her. After all, that was none of Kelly’s business.
It was Kelly’s turn to listen quietly.
‘And he didn’t mention a dead soldier called Trevor, obviously?’ he enquired eventually.
‘Of course not. The more I find out, via you, mostly, it has to be said, the more aware I am of the wall Parker-Brown has put up around himself and his beloved Devonshire Fusiliers. Certainly, he does not seem willing to admit to any suicides out at Hangridge, nor anything else much, come to that, unless he has absolutely no alternative.’
‘So what happens next from your point of view?’ Kelly asked.
‘I’ve told you what I want to do, but I really have to do it by the book this time,’ said Karen. ‘I have no choice. This could be a very hot potato, you know, Kelly. I’m going to have to be extremely careful with any information that comes my way from now on, too. I’m afraid I really am going to have to stick to the rules. And I know you’ll find this unfair, but even if what Margaret Slade told you does check out, I’m not sure that I’ll be able to give you a full ID on this chap, Trevor, let alone an address for his family...’
‘Hmm.’ Kelly grunted disapprovingly, through a large mouthful of cod. ‘Damn right, I think it’s unfair. I put you onto this in the first place and right along the line I’ve given you all the information I have. But you’re not prepared to give me anything.’
Kelly was his usual animated self. He spoke so forcefully that he seemed to be having difficulty keeping the food he was trying at the same time to chew, inside his mouth. A flake or two of fish fell from his lips onto the plate before him. Impatiently, he took a big gulp of tea and swallowed. He then lapsed into baleful silence and sat glowering at her.
Karen sighed. However, Kelly was only reacting as she would have expected him to, and pretty much the same way she would have reacted in his place. They had always been kindred spirits, much as she tried to deny it to herself most of the time.
‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t give you anything, Kelly,’ she told him. ‘I said I would have to be careful, and go by the book for once, that’s all.’
‘Much the same thing,’ muttered Kelly, through a further mouthful of fish. He took another gulp of tea in order to wash down the food so that he could speak more easily.
‘Oh, come on, Karen. If Margaret Slade’s story checks out, then not only will there have been an inquest on this young chap, Trevor, but it will also have been reported in the press. So I can always get Sal at the Argus to troll through cuts, which is exactly what I did to find Craig Foster’s address. It would be tricky and time-consuming without a full name, but basically all you would do, would be to save me time.’
His mobile phone rang then, before Karen had the chance to reply, which was actually something of a relief to her. She was getting into deep water again with Kelly, and she knew it. She concentrated on her meal, while Kelly answered the phone with a belligerence which totally fitted the mood he seemed to have fallen into.
‘Yes,’ he snapped abruptly.
But almost at once his manner changed.
‘I’ll be there straight away,’ he said, and his voice was quite shaky. ‘I shouldn’t be more than fifteen minutes.’
Karen studied him enquiringly as he finished the call. All the colour seemed to have drained from his face. She could not imagine what news he had just been given which would have had such an effect on him.
‘It’s Moira,’ he said quietly. ‘She’s in the hospice at Newton Abbot. I... I have to go. Apparently she... she’s very poorly. That was Jennifer. She said her mother... well...’
His voice tailed off.
‘Moira?’ queried Karen, who was genuinely shocked. ‘I didn’t even know she was ill.’
‘No, well...’
His voice trailed away again.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you daft bugger. I like Moira a lot, you know how fond I am of her—’
‘Yes,’ Kelly interrupted. As ever, he didn’t want to talk about emotions, didn’t want to give anything away about his own feelings or learn about anybody else’s, and neither did he want to talk about his partner’s terminal illness to anyone apart from her and her family. And maybe he would not be able to talk about it to any of them either, even if they had been willing to do so. Maybe he was just kidding himself that he could ever have done that.
He rose abruptly and headed for the door.
‘Kelly,’ Karen called after him.
He turned in the doorway. He looked terrible. His head was down, and there was a haunted look in his eyes. Karen felt for him.
‘I’m fond of you, too, Kelly,’ she said with a softness that surprised even her. And then, with as much of her usual, edgy forcefulness in her voice as she could muster, she added: ‘And don’t you forget it.’
Kelly stared at her, as if not really seeing her, for several seconds. Then he managed a very small, very weak smile.
‘You’re the boss,’ he said.
‘Yeah, and don’t you forget that, either,’ she called after him.
All three of Moira’s daughters were with her in her room at the hospice. They turned to look at Kelly as he made his entrance much more noisily than he had intended.
He had run all the way from the car park, through the front hall, right along the corridor on the first floor to the staircase at the far end, and then up three flights, much too anxious and impatient to take the lift. He was breathing heavily as he burst through the doorway, and he suspected that he looked red-faced and dishevelled.
‘Uh, sorry,’ he said automatically, realising as he spoke that his voice sounded high-pitched and squeaky.
He focused his gaze on the sick woman lying motionless on the bed. Her face was ashen, her eyes were shut tightly, and he could see no sign that she was even breathing.
‘Is she... is she?’ he began. And he could not, just could not get the words out, could not formulate the question. He could not even ask the girls if Moira was dead, and yet he had actually thought he had wanted to talk to them about their mother’s impending death. Jesus! Why was he such a waste of space sometimes.